Group Dynamics

Group: Two or more individuals who are connected by and within social relationships.
INTERACTION: What people do in the groups
Relationship Interaction: Actions performed by group members that relate to or influence the emotional and
interpersonal bonds within the group, including both positive actions (social support, consideration) and negative
actions (criticism, conflict).
Task Interaction: Actions performed by group members that pertain to the group’s project, tasks, and goals.

GOALS: Why groups exist

Table 1.1. Four Types of Group Goals and Group Tasks
Goals Tasks Examples
Generating Concocting strategies, producing new A community group coming up with fund-raising
ideas, developing plans, create novel ideas, a task force identifying new markets for a
solutions product, military commanders discussing ways to
reduce the risk of casualties
Choosing Selecting between alternatives, settling on A legislative body voting, students completing a
a single option among many, making a multiple-choice test as a group, a jury deciding a
choice defendant’s guilt, a committee selecting one of
three candidates for an award
Negotiating Managing differences of opinions, resolving A team arguing about who is to blame for losing an
conflicts and disputes, improving account, a leader setting new requirements for
coordination attendance, a group taking action to expel one of
its members
Executing Taking action, carrying out a plan, making A theater group performing a play, a military squad
something, performing a task on the attack, a work crew building a house, sports
teams in competition, protesters occupying a
public park

INTERDEPENDENCE: How members depend on one another:

their outcomes, actions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences

STRUCTURE: The underlying pattern of roles, norms, and relations

among members that organizes groups
Groups are organized, with each individual connected to others in a pattern of relationships, roles, and norms.
 Role: A coherent set of behaviors expected of people who occupy specific positions within a group.
 Norm: A consensual and often implicit standard that describes what behaviors should and should not
be performed in a given context.
UNITY: The strength of the bonds linking individuals to and in the group
Groups are cohesive social arrangements of individuals that perceivers, in some cases, consider to be unified
wholes.
Group Dynamics

Table 1.2. Types of Groups

Type of Group Characteristics Examples
Primary groups Small, long-term groups, characterized by Close friends, families, gangs, military
face-to-face interaction and high levels of squads
cohesiveness, solidarity, and member
identification
Social groups Small groups of moderate duration and Coworkers, crews, expeditions, fraternities,
permeability characterized by moderate levels sports teams, study groups, task forces
of interaction among the members over an
extended period of time, often in foal-focused
situations
Collectives Aggregations of individuals that form Audiences, bystanders, crowds, mobs,
spontaneously, last only a brief period of time, waiting lines (queues)
and have very permeable boundaries
Categories Aggregations of individuals who are similar to Asian Americans, New Yorkers, Physicians,
one another in some way, such as gender, U.S. citizens, women
ethnicity, religion, or nationality

Measurement in Group Dynamics

Scientific assessment of group members’ behaviors and psychological reactions.
 Quantitative study: A research procedure used to collect and analyze data in a numeric form, such as
frequencies, proportions, or amounts.
 Qualitative study: A research procedure used to collect and analyze nonnumeric, unquantified types of
data, such as text, images, or objects. These may include as a result of interview, responses to open-
ended survey questions.
 Structured observational method: A research procedure that classifies (codes) group members’ actions
into defined categories.
 Interaction process analysis: A structured coding system developed by Robert Bales used to classify
group behavior into task-oriented and relationship-oriented categories. Researchers who use the IPA
classify each behavior performed by a group member.
 System of Multiple Level Observation of Groups (SYMLOG): Revised IPA based on 3 dimensions:
1. Dominance/Submission
2. Friendly/Unfriendly
3. Instrumentally controlled/Emotionally expressive

OBSERVATION: A measurement method that involves wanting

and recording individual and group actions
 Overt observation: Openly watching and recording group behavior with no attempt to conceal one’s
research purposes.
 Covert observation: Watching and recording group behavior without the participants’ knowledge.
 Participant observation: Watching and recording group behavior while taking part in the social process.
 Hawthorne effect: A change in behavior that occurs when individuals know they are being studied
by researchers. Note: This may change group behavior.

SELF-REPORT: An assessment method, such as a questionnaire, test, or interview

that ask respondents to describe their feelings, attitudes, or beliefs
 Sociometry: A graphic representation of the patterns of intermember relations created through
sociometry.
 Sociogram: A graphic representation of the patterns of intermember relations created through sociometry.
 Moreno’s sociometry method asks members to report whom they like the most. The nominations are used
to generate a sociogram, or visual image of the interpersonal relations in the group.
 Jacob Moreno: Pioneer. Used self-report method to study groups or social organization.
Group Dynamics
Examples of Sociograms:

Research Method in Group Dynamics

 Case study: An in-depth analysis of one or more groups based on interviews with members, observation,
and so on.
 Can be highly subjective, but they stimulate theory and provide detailed information.
 Experiment study: A design in which the investigator manipulates at least one variable by randomly
assigning participants to two or more different conditions and measuring at least one other variable.
 The clearest test of cause-and-effect hypotheses.
 Correlational study: A research design in which the investigator measures (but does not manipulate) at
least two variables and then uses statistical procedures to examine the strength and direction of the
relationship between these variables.
 They yield precise estimates of the strength of the relationship between two variables and raise
fewer questions of ethings for researchers.
Theoretical Perspectives in Group Dynamics
Theorizes organize facts and give direction for future research.
Motivational and Emotional Perspective
Explain group behavior in terms of members, wants, needs, drives, and feelings move group members to action.
The words motivation and emotion both come from the Latin word movere, meaning “to move”.

Motivations are psychological mechanisms that give purpose and direction to behavior. These inner mechanisms
can be called many things like habits, beliefs, feelings, wants, instinct, compulsions, drives but no matter what
their lavel, they prompt people to take action. While emotions often accompany these needs and desires; feelings
of happiness, sadness, satisfaction, and sorrow are just a few of the emotions that can influence how people act
in group situations.
Behavioral Perspective
A theoretical explanation of the way organisms acquiere new responses to environmental stimuli through such
conditioning processes as stimulus-response associations and reinforcement. Theories based on Skinner’s
behaviorism, such as Thibaut and Kelley’s social exchange theory, assume that individuals act to maximize their
rewards and minimize their costs.

System Theory Perspective

A general theoretical approach which assumes that groups are systems. An input-process-output model (I-P-O
model) of group performance exemplifies the systems approach.

Cognitive Perspective
Allow members to gather information, make sense of it, and then act on the results of their mental appraisals.
Cognitive processes include memory systems that store data and the psychological mechanisms that process
thisinformation. Turner’s Self-Categorization Theory (SCT) is a cognitive process appraoch, for it assumes that
group members’ tendency to categorize other people and themsleves influences a wide range of group behavior.

Biological Perspective
Such as evolutionary theory, argue that some group behaviors, including leadership may be rooted in people’s
biological heritage.